


If the World

by eva_roisin



Category: X-23 (Comic), X-Force (Comics), X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-21
Updated: 2010-09-21
Packaged: 2018-05-28 01:50:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6309571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eva_roisin/pseuds/eva_roisin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the wake of personal tragedies, Laura and Julian take comfort in each other. Set after X-23 #1.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If the World

Every Wednesday they had art class. In rectangular room with long tables and windows that overlooked the flat, dull courtyard—its angular, barren gardens meant to serve as inspiration—they dribbled paint onto canvas, molded clay, or sketched their own faces from memory. It was more art appreciation than art class—“Like, let’s be real, nobody here is going to be Van Gogh,” Victor said one afternoon to no one in particular. He flattened his clay against the table and gave it a good closed-fisted pound. “Did you know he cut off his own ear?”  
  
“I’d cut off both my ears if it meant not having to listen to you do that anymore,” Santo said. “And yeah, like, we’ve all heard that. In every art class since we were ten. It’s pretty much the only thing anyone remembers about that guy.”  
  
Julian was poised on his stool, shoulders hunched. He had already finished pounding the air bubbles out of his clay and now he was busy shaping it into something else, something other than the gray lump he’d been given. Laura thought it looked like a dog. “This is such a fucking waste of time,” he said, but his quiet intensity belied his apparent lack of interest.  
  
“Art therapy,” Nori said, sitting at the opposite table. “That’s what this is. Helps you work out your issues. All that shit you can’t articulate. Creating things, not destroying them. Blah. You should just try to enjoy it, Julian. For our sake, not yours.”  
  
“Argh!” Victor said. He picked up his clay and hurled it onto the table. It hit with a thud. “Ah, I feel so much better now.”  
  
“He gave it to his girlfriend.” Cessily was bent over her in-progress sculpture. Laura couldn’t see what she was making because her hair hung down in front of it like a curtain. “Van Gogh. When he cut off his ear, he gave it to his girlfriend.”  
  
“How romantic,” Santo said in a high-pitched sing-song voice that was supposed to sound like Cessily’s. Or any other silly girl’s. Laura understood that Cessily hadn’t meant to imply that what Van Gogh had done was romantic—she merely had been trying to contribute to the discussion.  
  
“I don’t know why you’d cut off your ear for some chick,” Santo pointed out, pressing his knuckles into his clay. He had a bigger clump of clay than anyone else, but he didn’t seem to know what to do with it. Every time his sculpture would start to take any shape whatsoever, he’d flatten it again. “If I was really pissed off about somebody and wanted to gross them out, I’d cut off my—”  
  
“Ear _lobe_ ,” Nori said.  
  
“Big toe,” Santo finished.  
  
“And she wasn’t his girlfriend, she was a prostitute, and he didn’t do it for her—he did it because he was mentally ill.” Nori straightened. Laura could see that she was nearly done with her clay; she had sculpted an open book and etched some pages. “So that’s why. Normal people don’t do shit like that. So this conversation is, like, futile. There’s no use in sitting here trying to psychoanalyze some irrational dead guy.” She cupped her sculpture with both hands and walked to the table at the front of the room. “Alright, that’s that. This P.O.S. is ready to hit the kiln.” She set it down.  
  
As soon as she stepped away, the table rattled. Her sculpture inched to the left. “I swear to God, Julian—”  
  
Julian wasn’t even looking in her direction. “Did you feel that? Aftershocks.”  
  
“Get under the desks, darlings,” Victor said, sounding vaguely like Emma Frost.

 “I worked for two hours on that thing, Julian,” Nori said.  
  
“Wasn’t me, Nori. And anyway, you just said it was a piece of shit.”  
  
“Well it’s my piece of shit, so you better cut it out.”  
  
Laura sat with Sooraya at the table on the far end of the room. She didn’t say anything. She really did not have anything to add, and at this point she wasn’t sure that contributing would be a good thing. Sooraya didn’t speak up either. Sooraya’s sculpture was very good—it was a sailboat with two perfect sails, one slightly bigger than the other.  
  
“What is that?” she asked, blinking at Laura’s sculpture.  
  
“It is an ashtray.” Laura kneaded the bottom of it with two of her knuckles. She wasn’t good at sculpting. She believed that if she’d had more time she would have been able to study the mechanics of the art form more closely and to choose a more interesting subject. But she’d been missing a lot of art classes lately—a lot of classes in general. Well anyway, she figured she could give the ashtray to Logan for his birthday.  
  
She was working on molding the sides when she heard footsteps in the hallway. _Just another minute,_ she thought. Another minute. The footsteps came closer. Cyclops. He wasn’t a minute away—just six or seven seconds. Five. Four. _Another minute and I would have been finished—_  
  
Cyclops stepped into the doorway and everyone was suddenly busy, bent over and fixed on their sculptures. Victor stopped pounding.  
  
“X-23?” Cyclops said. “I need your help. Meet me downstairs in a minute. You can leave your things.”  
  
Logan would have to make do with an unfinished, lopsided ashtray. That was alright—he didn’t smoke very much anymore. Laura wasn’t exactly sure of how much he smoked, but she estimated 1.3 cigars per week.  
  
“Where are you going, Laura?” Nori asked.  
  
Laura slid off her stool. Santo said, “Teacher’s pet.”  
  
“I’ll put your sculpture in the kiln for you,” Sooraya said.  
  
Julian spun around on his stool and set both hands on his hips. He gave her a nod. “Busy lady.” He reached over and picked up her half-formed ashtray. “Don’t worry, Kinney. I’ll make sure it comes out okay.”  
  
“Thank you, Julian,” Laura said and left the art lab to see what Cyclops wanted her to do.  
  
***  
  
So the ground is more forgiving than her friends. Lying on her back usually makes her feel vulnerable, but today the sun is warm and the air clear. She knows she needs to be inside doing what everyone else is doing—laundry and homework and teambuilding—and she has a lot of schoolwork to make up—but right now it feels more normal to be outside looking up at the clouds, to not have to be around the crush of the air conditioner and the buzz of the TV.  
  
She has two thoughts, neither of them reassuring: 1) X-Force is really over, and 2) she doesn’t want to fall asleep again.  
  
The sleeping outside thing she’s doing out of necessity. The other kids are chalking it up to her weirdness—another eccentricity that’s the result of growing up in a lab and living on the street for a few years—but Laura knows that it’s the best way to regulate the sleep cycle. Human beings evolved to sleep outside, to be roused every so often by the approach of inclement weather or the presence of an animal. And Laura needs to be woken up as frequently as possible. Every time she falls too deeply asleep, she has another terrible dream.  
  
She props herself up against the trunk of a tree and tries to stay awake. She takes a deep breath and tries to remember the relaxation techniques that Logan taught her. But as soon as she thinks of Logan she tenses again.  
  
Maybe it’s best to never be relaxed.  
  
Then: someone approaches. She sits up straight and inhales. Julian.  
  
Without thinking, Laura smoothes back her hair. Julian is getting closer—he’s going to find her here—and she’s torn by two impulses: to rush to greet him, or to climb up a tree so that he can’t find her at all. She nixes both options and decides to stay put.

 Julian gets closer. Leaves crunch under his feet. Then he appears at the foot of the path and spots her. He stands in the sun and squints and raises his arm reflexively, as if trying to shield his eyes from the sun. Then he drops his arm and looks at her. “What are you doing?”  
  
She just watches as he approaches.  
  
He makes his way from the footpath to the clearing and pauses in front of her. Then he lowers himself onto the patch of grass next to her. Without his hands, it’s a little more difficult for him to sit down, and he’s slow about it. He folds his legs under him and rests his forearms against his knees. “You don’t mind if I sit here, do you?”  
  
She shakes her head.  
  
“Pretty day.”  
  
She is still. She doesn’t say what she’s thinking: that it’s nice right now, but that the weather could change. She also knows that she’s supposed to say a bunch of other things; that she’s supposed to be, in a word, concerned, because this is how people operate. And she is concerned. She’s thought of nothing but him since coming back from the future, even going so far as to dream that she has lost her own hands and they will not grow back. She wants to tell him this, but she doesn’t know where to begin. And worse, she knows that these thoughts, coming from her, will sound unsettling, the kind of thing her classmates would call _creepy_. Worst of all, she doesn’t know how he’ll respond. People rarely respond the way she thinks they will.  
  
“Listen,” he says. He brushes one forearm against his thigh. “I was thinking we could, y’know, talk. Since, I mean, we haven’t really done that lately and I haven’t seen you around.” He pauses. Then he holds out his arms. “Do they freak you out?”  
  
She glances up. She realizes all too late that she’s been staring, fixating on the place where his arms end just above where his wrists used to be. “No,” she says, shaking her head quickly. “I did not mean—I would never—”

“It’s okay,” he says, resting his elbows on his thighs. “A lot of people don’t seem to look at all. Or they look once and they . . . Summers even sent me to the city to do volunteer work. To work with disabled ex-mutants or whatever. Like, I guess it was supposed to teach me to be thankful. Hey, I might not be able to go bowling or do fuckin’ cartwheels anymore, but at least I still got my powers, right?” He smiles.  
  
“Mr. Summers also wants me to work with former mutants,” she says, relieved to have a foothold in this conversation. (She realizes moments later that he was trying to be funny—to _joke_ with her. But now the moment has passed.)  
  
“Is that what he talked to you about this morning?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
Silence again. Julian says, “Yeah, I was wondering. Look, I’m sorry about what Nori said to you earlier. She had no right. She’s been a bitch lately. Not just to you but to a lot people.”  
  
“It is not your fault.”  
  
“No—I know,” he says quickly, so quickly that Laura figures out that she misinterpreted what he was trying to say. “I can understand why you didn’t tell us. About X-Force. So her line of thinking is completely jacked. But can I ask you why you joined in the first place? I mean, she’s sort of right. You could have said no and we would have had your back.”  
  
She stares past him—over his shoulder and at the path. It’s easier to not look at him. At any part of him.  
  
“And, like, Logan was okay with you doing all that? That’s really fucked up. I thought he brought you to the school to get you away from that sort of thing. I mean, didn’t he give a shit? When I heard that I seriously just lost all respect for him.”  
  
“Logan did not want me to join, but Cyclops had the final say. I was chosen for the team because of my background and skills. And the team was necessary because of the dire threat to mutantkind.” This is what Cyclops told her—she’s just reciting it. And all of these things might be true, but they don’t explain what she’s feeling.

 When Julian—and other people—ask her why she didn’t refuse to join X-Force, she feels unbalanced and uneasy, the way she felt that day Logan told her that she needed to figure out what she wanted to do with herself. She feels confused. So X-Force was a thing she could have refused to do. And she should have known this—it seems glaringly obvious to everyone else. Even Storm said that there was a line she couldn’t cross. How did she know a line when Laura didn’t? And how could you see a line without crossing it?  
  
Julian leans forward. “Yeah, but what about—”  
  
“I do not wish to speak of X-Force anymore.”  
  
He straightens. Then, he lowers his voice. “I can understand that. It must have sucked. I don’t really like to think about what happened when . . . this past spring. People keep wanting me to talk about it. I just want to forget.”  
  
She considers him. She does not understand. And she gets the feeling that he doesn’t understand her either. Their problems are not very different. These two things—killing people for X-Force and losing your hands—are not the same.  
  
X-Force is a loss, but not in the way he thinks. Not in the sense that the team took something from her. (It took nothing from her. She is the same now as she has always been.) But it is gone now, all of it. The good parts and the bad parts. Never again will she wake up at Warren’s house and smell the snow falling, and never again will she have to wander into Josh’s room and tell him that Logan says it’s okay to cut off his nose if he doesn’t get up. And there was the time that Domino did her makeup for her. And the time they ate at Denny’s after a difficult mission—when James got up to go to the bathroom, she stole a pancake from his plate. “You gotta be shitting me,” he said when he got back. “You must have a wooden leg and a fuckin’ death wish.” She said she had neither—just had a large appetite and every intention of living for a very long time.  
  
She doesn’t know how to tell Julian any of this.  
  
Then she thinks of something she can tell him, and when it occurs to her it seems explicable and real and very fitting. She’s proud of her insight. “I would kill more people if it meant that you would not have been hurt.”  
  
He doesn’t blink. Then he looks away. No, he is not pleased with that. It’s not what he wanted to hear. It bothered him. She has made him _uncomfortable_. She makes a mental note that it is wrong to say such a thing. Do not tell people you would kill for them. Even if it’s true.  
  
“I am sorry,” she says, rising to her knees. “I am sorry that I didn’t tell you.”  
  
“Wait,” he says. He raises an arm. Then he scrambles for her, realizing that he is unable to grasp her shoulders. “Don’t go, I—” He tries to push himself to his knees, but he can’t untangle his feet fast enough to regain his balance. He falls onto his side, his shoulder hitting the ground with a soft thud. “Fuck! Goddamnit.”  
  
She reaches for him.  
  
“Don’t. Don’t fucking think about touching me.” When she draws back he looks up at her, his hair falling in his eyes. “Wait, forget I said that. But I’m not a cripple, you know?” He presses one elbow against the ground and manages to get himself upright. “I have to learn how to do things for myself. I can’t use my TK for everything. It’s just—it’s hard.”  
  
“I know,” she says. She remembers how difficult life was when she was waiting for her arm to grow back.  
  
He peers into her face, and she gets the feeling that he’s going to contradict her. But instead he relaxes, and a long, clarifying moment passes. “We’re thinking about having a Scrabble tournament tomorrow night. Will you be on my team?”

 “But Surge—”  
  
“Forget about her.”  
  
“I do not wish to make the others uncomfortable.”  
  
“The more you’re around, the less they’ll think about it. And if they don’t, fuck ‘em. It’s their problem. And anyway, I think we’d win.”  
  
“I expect that we would. I am highly skilled at Scrabble.”  
  
“I know, but I wanted to ask you because it’s like . . .” He leans forward again. His knees touch hers, and his breathing stops, and his eyes close.  
  
She pulls back.  
  
He pulls away too and his eyes fly open. He averts his gaze and right away she can tell that he’s embarrassed. “Shit.”  
  
“Julian—”  
  
“No, you’re right. I’m like, horrifying. I can’t believe I actually—yeah. How dumb am I.” He scoots backwards and pushes himself to his feet, arms jutting out to give him balance.  
  
She feels how angry and ashamed he is, and the knowledge is nauseating. Julian—Julian, who is perfect, who could never do anything to repulse her—thinks he is ugly. He cannot think this. She cannot allow him to think this.  
  
She climbs to her feet and reaches for him again.  
  
***  
  
It’s not that she’s never thought of having sex with Julian Keller. It’s just that she never wanted to. This kind of intimacy is reserved for other matters. It is a weapon. She remembers the time Josh talked all about sex and he blushed a deep orange color and his heart rate increased and his palms got sweaty, and she thought, How could you do that? How could you do that to someone you love?  
  
But when Julian presses his hips against hers and she feels his erection, she knows what her body wants, and her body seems to overrule everything. It always has. She knows that there is no fighting basic biology. It overrides the decision-making process. This is natural—what bodies were meant to do.

 What’s more important is this: it’s what _he_ wants. Who is she to deny him? She has always wanted him, always, and at this moment her secret misgivings pass away. This is okay, she tells herself. It’s okay because it’s Julian. It’s not okay because it’s Julian. She can’t decide, but it doesn’t seem to matter. She can just do this. She does not have to think.  
  
She pushes away the terrible dreams about Logan.  
  
They still have their clothes on. She’s sitting against a tree and he’s between her legs. His mouth is on her neck and his arms brush against her breasts. Then he looks up. “Not here.”  
  
“Where?”  
  
He nods to the trees. Beyond the trees there are boulders.  
  
Once they are away from the building, he swipes at her shirt. She slips it off. Then they lie down again. She takes off her bra and sets it aside, and then his mouth is on her breast, his tongue swirling around her nipple. Then the other one. He kisses her stomach, his mouth traveling to the waistband of her skirt. With both of his forearms he tries to push her skirt over her hips.  
  
She understands what he wants to do, and she’s secretly puzzled and nervous. This is an activity most men don’t like and she’s not sure that she’ll like it, but she decides to go along. It’s what Julian wants. She sits up and pulls her skirt up and her tights down, underwear with them, but she doesn’t them all the way off. She lies back and Julian is there, his mouth between her legs. Tentative at first. Just trying her out, tasting her. She feels a momentary bout of discomfort—like maybe he hates this—but then he grooves his tongue into her, bold. She spreads her legs farther apart and closes her eyes.

 After a minute, he sits back. “Are you okay?”  
  
“I am fine,” she says, propping herself up on her elbows. She looks at him. “I am not good at this.”  
  
He holds up his arms. “How do you think that makes me feel?”  
  
“No, I mean—”  
  
“I was joking.” He looks down at himself. His erection is bunched up in his pants, uncomfortable looking. “Would you mind—this is the thing I hate. I mean, maybe I can . . .” His belt buckle starts to glow a little.  
  
She scrambles to her knees and reaches for it, unsnapping it easily and unzipping his pants. She pushes them down slowly over his erection, pausing just briefly to brush her thumb against the base. He shudders.  
  
When they’re both more or less naked and kneeling in front of each other, she runs her fingers along the length of his penis. He lets out a small sigh and bucks against her, jabbing her stomach. His forearms quiver and reach for her without touching. “Can I—can we, like—”  
  
She looks up at him. “You would like to have intercourse.”  
  
He nods. “Is that okay?”  
  
“Do you have a preferred position? Or anything else you want to do?”  
  
He blushes. “Just like, well no. Anything’s fine.”  
  
She leans back again and clutches his waist, pulling him between her open legs. He’s now mashed against her and she’s wet—more from her own moisture than his saliva. She’ll have no problems taking him. She reaches between them and adjusts the angle and arches her back. Then she slips him halfway into her. He gasps. Then he pumps once and almost slides out of her. He pumps again, burying himself within her, and she clutches his ass. He shivers a little, and then he twitches, and then the warm jet of his cum is deep inside her.  
  
“Oh!” he cries. He slumps against her, breathing hard. Then he pushes himself back and looks at her. “Shit, shit. I’m sorry. Shit, we didn’t use anything. I meant to pull out.”  
  
“It is okay. You cannot catch anything from me. Nor I you. I have a healing—”  
  
“I know. But what about pregnancy?”  
  
She shrugged. She suspects she can’t get pregnant. But she reassures him all the same: “I am not ovulating.”

 He exhales. “Are you sure? Are you absolutely positive? Maybe we should get the morning-after pill. Just to be safe.”  
  
“I am certain,” she says, trying to hide how pleased she is that he’s concerned for her, even if he’s more concerned for his own sake.

  
“You didn’t come.”  
  
“You’re correct.”  
  
“I can make you come. Somehow. We can try, like, different things.”  
  
Once again she is deeply, inexplicably pleased.

 They maneuver so that she’s sitting against his right leg. Leaning against him. He rubs his leg against her soft, wet center and she grips his thighs to steady herself. Her breasts bounce. She feels her body ease into a rhythm, and soon Julian has an erection again.  
  
“Here,” he says. He gestures to her.  
  
She settles onto him. In this position she’s able to move more freely, to press down against him and rock her hips. She squeezes him and slides on and off him. He moans. Seconds later she feels her release welling inside of her, waiting for her. She closes her eyes and comes. She barely notices when he swells inside her and ejaculates again, his own orgasm tailing hers.  
  
Afterwards they curl up together and she wonders how she is the same person who joined X-Force and has terrible dreams about Logan and let Nori bother her this morning. If the world ended tomorrow, if the ocean swallowed Utopia or Cyclops told her to throw herself into a volcano, she wouldn’t care.  
  
***  
  
That night she takes a long shower, reads a book, and sleeps in her own bed. She doesn’t dream about Logan. When she awakens in the morning she feels happy, and she remembers why. Julian. She gets dressed and makes her way downstairs for breakfast.  
  
Julian is not there. Instead, Nori, Sooraya, Victor, and Santo are sitting around one table. Victor’s reading the paper. He looks up and says hi and Sooraya nods. Santo just stares at her. Nori doesn’t look up at all, but that’s nothing new. She’s not a morning person. She’s got a fashion magazine open to an article that reads “Seven Ways to Get Great Skin.” Laura puts some fruit and bread on a plate and slides onto a stool next to Sooraya.  
  
“What’s up, Laura?” Santo says. “Heard you’ve got a new gig you’re starting today. Volunteer work.”  
  
She nods.  
  
Nori eats a spoonful of cereal. “Maybe you’ll be more forthcoming about the details this time.”  
  
“I’m sure she will be,” Santo says. “Laura’s really good at helping those in need.” His mouth twitches.  
  
Victor doesn’t look up, but his eyes stop scanning the page.  
  
Santo sighs and drags himself to his feet. He goes over to the cereal dispenser and puts his bowl underneath and pulls the lever. Nothing comes out. “Shit. It’s broken. Laura, could you give me a hand? I’ve heard you’re really handy. I’ve heard you are really good with things that are broken.”  
  
Nori closes her magazine and turns around with a sudden jerk. “Cut it out, Santo.”  
  
Santo’s laughing. “What? I didn’t say anything. You told me not to say anything and I haven’t. I just wanted Laura to lend me a hand.”  
  
“You’re the biggest fucking asshole,” Nori says, springing up from her stool. “Get out!” She charges him, pushing him through the door. When he’s in the hallway, she reaches over and slams it shut. She turns slowly and looks at Laura. “I can’t believe you.”  
  
Laura feels an emotion that’s just inexplicable. Beyond her.  
  
“You slept with Julian? Laura, how could you?”  
  
Victor rolls the paper. “Nori, just drop it. Leave her alone.”  
  
“I wasn’t going to say anything, but now it’s too late. What, like she doesn’t have a right to know what’s being said?”  
  
“What is being said?” Laura asks.  
  
Sooraya looks down at her breakfast.  
  
“Nothing,” Victor says. “Forget about it.”  
  
“Just that you fucked Julian outside yesterday.” Nori stands in front of the table as if fixed there. “Twice. That you were his little comfort bang.”  
  
“I am not happy with the tone of this confrontation,” Sooraya says, placing her hand on the table in front of her. “There are better ways to discuss this. Laura—”  
  
Laura’s still turning Nori’s revelation over in her mind. “Julian said that?”

 “C’mon, Laura. It’s _Julian_. What did you really expect?” She closes her eyes and shakes her head. Then she opens her eyes again. “I just don’t understand what you’re thinking half the time, Laura. It’s like you want to cheapen yourself as much as possible. You come here to learn how not to be a killer, and you turn around join the death squad. You come here to learn how not to be a whore, and you give it up to Julian Keller the first time he asks. You could have at least made him work for it! You know, take you out on a date or something. Talk to you. Sit with you at breakfast. But no. Do you just do whatever everybody wants? Laura, despite everything I still consider you my friend, and this is, like, so sad. It’s so sad to see you self-destruct like this.”  
  
“Oh for crying out loud,” Victor says. He climbs to his feet and goes to the sink to drop his dishes. They hit with a clang. “Nori, just shut the fuck up. You’re blowing this way out of proportion.”  
  
“I think you should leave, Victor. This is a girl talk. And no, being gay doesn’t give you an honorary vagina.”  
  
“Fuck you,” Victor says. “I’m not going anywhere. Or if I am, it’s to get Summers. This is turning into a bullshit public flogging.”  
  
“I will get Mr. Summers,” Sooraya says, but she doesn’t move.  
  
Laura studies the scene around her, cataloguing the feelings of her friends. Sooraya clearly wants to be somewhere else, and Victor is angry. But Nori is angriest of all. “You’re . . . jealous,” she pronounces.  
  
“Oh!” Nori clasps her hands together. “Laura, get a fucking brain scan. No one here is jealous. Think about the situation. About who Julian is and what he’s been through. When you got here he was just mean to you. Then he wouldn’t give you the time of day. Then he gets his hands blown off and he’s all sad, and suddenly you don’t seem like such a bad option anymore, and he knows that he can at least get sex out of it. Are you connecting the dots yet? Once he was too good for you. Now his choices have dwindled.”  
  
“You’re off the hook,” Victor says, taking a step toward her, and his skin is a darker shade of green than Laura’s ever seen before. He’s fuming. “You’ve crossed the line, Nori.”  
  
“What line? The line Laura and X-Force just keep moving?”  
  
Laura slowly rises to her feet. She heads in the direction of the door.  
  
“Laura,” Sooraya calls.  
  
“Oh, shit,” Nori says. “Laura, I didn’t mean—”  
  
Laura chooses not to hear anything anymore.  
  
***  
  
Outside she runs down the path to the glen. It’s not far enough. She hates living on an island where she can’t just run for miles and miles. She stops in front of a big tree and starts to climb, using her foot claws for leverage, leaving huge gashes in its trunk. The tree will probably die now, but she doesn’t care. She has to be in the city in a few hours. About this, she also doesn’t care.  
  
But then Julian comes looking for her. He steps into the clearing and calls her name, not knowing that she’s feet above him.  
  
She props herself up between branches and looks down at him. “I am here.”  
  
He stands beneath the tree and looks up. “God, what are you doing up there?”  
  
“I do not wish to speak now. Please go away.”

 “Come on, Laura. Come down. I heard about what happened, and I’m sorry. Nori took a bunch of shit out of context.”  
  
“You told people,” she says, gripping the branch. “You told.” She doesn’t understand why this upsets her as much as it does—why it upsets her that people know what she did. For the first thirteen years of her life, the intimate details of her existence were on display for a coterie of scientists and lab technicians, so she’s never been self-conscious or embarrassed of the things that make other people wary. But what Julian did feels so personal, and Nori’s appraisal of the situation feels so right. In the last thirty minutes, Nori’s story has become her story—the official account of what happened.  
  
Julian told. He used her.  
  
“I’m sorry I told,” he says, looking up through the branches. “But it wasn’t like that. I wasn’t like, bragging. I told people because I wanted them to know. Because I don’t want secrets anymore.” He lowers his voice. “I really like you, and I want everyone to know it. I don’t want to hide it. To hide us.”  
  
She regards him carefully. He might not be telling the truth, but he is truthful.  
  
“Okay,” he admits. “So okay, I was happy about it too. Can you blame me? I mean, look at me. Of course everyone thinks that I wouldn’t be able to, you know. And maybe I just wanted to show them otherwise.”  
  
“There is nothing wrong with the way you are.”  
  
He stares at her through the branches. His mouth collapses. She recognizes that he is going to cry. “You say that like it’s true. But we both know otherwise. Laura, come on.”  
  
“I do not understand why you wanted to be with me.”  
  
“Because I like you.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Because we seem to have things in common. And we understand each other.” He pauses. “You understand what I’m going through.”  
  
So that is why. She knows why he assumes this, and he has made a gross miscalculation. The thought stuns her, though perhaps it shouldn’t. When he sees her he presumes loss. He doesn’t understand that she’s always been this way. “We have nothing in common. And I want to be alone.”  
  
“Oh, come on, Laura.” He lifts his arms. “You know I can’t climb up there.”  
  
“Too bad.”  
  
The branch starts to glow and shake. “Stop it,” she says. She pops her claws and plunges them into the trunk of the tree. “I will kill you if you don’t leave me alone, and believe me, that is one thing I _am_ good at.” She doesn’t know if this is true. She doubts she could ever seriously hurt Julian Keller—even now.  
  
He continues to stare into the branches. “Fine.” He steps away and turns. Then he retreats in the direction of the building. “Fuck.”  
  
***  
  
Hours later, Mr. Summers meets her in the room near the entrance. He gives her fare for the ferry and the taxi and instructions about where she is supposed to go. “Call if you have trouble. Um,” he brings his hand up as if he’s thinking about touching her shoulder. “Can we step inside here?” He motions to a private study.  
  
Once they’re inside, he closes the door over. “I debated whether or not I should say anything, and Miss Frost will probably be upset that I had this conversation without her. Look, if something’s going on between you and Julian . . .”

 She tucks her hands in her pockets. He’s not fishing for information. He already knows. “We engaged in sexual activity. It will not happen again.”  
  
“Look, it’s not that it—” He clasps his hands to his sides. “It’s not that it’s against the rules. Well, between students it is. Technically. It’s just, I’m more concerned about you at this point. Are you okay?”  
  
She nods.  
  
“Don’t worry, I’m going to talk to him too. You’re not being singled out. But you should see a counselor.”  
  
“I do not need a psychologist.”  
  
“I know. But it’s just protocol. School’s responsibility. Nothing personal—that sort of thing. And I’m going to have to tell Logan.”  
  
She staggers forward, understanding that she will be spared no humiliation. “No, please. Please don’t tell Logan.”  
  
Now Cyclops does touch her shoulder. “He’s going to find out. Better that he hears it from us.”  
  
“Please.”  
  
He stares at her. Then he nods. “If this is just a one-time thing, then maybe there’s no need.”  
  
“It’s just a one-time thing,” she says, and immediately she understands the feelings she couldn’t pinpoint until now. This is shame. This is regret. This is loss and terrible, terrible sadness. Her eyes fill with tears. A one-time thing. She misses him already. She feels a lack.  
  
“Oh, Laura,” he says, rubbing her shoulder. “I’m sorry for all of this. But this isn’t your fault. It happens to people all the time. And he’s just a boy, and he’s not mature, and he doesn’t have a great grasp of the etiquette that goes along with these situations. And that’s to say nothing of his recent trauma. But believe me when I say we’ve all been there.”  
  
She stares at the ground. At her boots. Her vision blurs.  
  
“The important thing is that you don’t blame yourself. And that you’re more careful in the future.” He pauses. “Sometimes it’s like . . .” His voice grows quieter, and his hand is steady on her shoulder. “Whenever we love people, we’re left with less than what we started out with.” He drops his hand and takes a sharp breath. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry. Forget I said anything. Damnit.”  
  
She crosses her arms in front of her chest.  
  
“Alright,” he says. “Alright.”  
  
She knows that he’s supposed to usher her to the door so she can get to her destination on time. But for a moment they just look at each other. For a moment they stay put.

 


End file.
